North Easton Monthly Meeting of Friends Records

Background on North Easton Monthly Meeting of Friends

Responding to a concern expressed in the New England Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends in 1971, Quakers in eastern Massachusetts set out to create an intentional Quakerly community for the care of elder Friends. In 1976, an 86 acre site in North Easton, Mass., was purchased, with a small cottage that became the first site for an independent worship group the following year.

Ground breaking for the planned community, Friends Crossing, took place in November 1978, with the first residents moving in a year later. Renting space for their meeting in town, in expectation that a meetinghouse would eventually be built, the community grew sufficiently that Rhode Island-Smithfield Quarter authorized them as a new monthly meeting in August 1980. By the early 1990s, however, the aging out of members sapped the meeting, and in the face of a sharp decline in attenders, the decision was made in 1994 to lay down North Easton Monthly.